Places of Worship

I'd just eaten a joyless pork pie.  I didn't know such a thing existed.  The fusion of hard pastry, thick pork and a layer of shaky jelly is one of the most wonderful food combinations there is.  It's one of the great British food inventions.  On top of that, I was still dieting, so the pie was tinged with the subtle taste of illegality, a stolen pleasure I wasn't meant to be enjoying.

It just wasn't doing anything for me though.  I munched through the perfectly adequate pastry, consuming each piece until all that was left was greasy fingertips and crumbs round my mouth, and I didn't enjoy any of it.

I blame Llanbedr.  My lengthy trek round Shell Island had left me tired and defeated.  There should have been another five stations on the horizon for the rest of the day; because I'd missed that train, I was going to have to drop the last two of the day, Tygwyn and Talsarnau.  Which meant I'd have to do them another day, which meant another station would drop off the end...  One train every two hours restricts your routing, particularly when you want to explore around the stations and not just spend all your time waiting for buses.

I was sat on the floor, hiding from a cold wind and the rain shower that had finally turned up.  It was another of those shelters they didn't want passengers to be comfortable in, making the hard concrete preferable to the narrow shelf above.  Occasionally a big truck would rattle past, out of place in the countryside.

I was glum.  I was down.  I was miserable.  I needed cheering up.

I took out my iPod and put on some Kylie Minogue.

I can hear your judgement from here, but you know what?  I don't care.  Dame Kylie of Erinsborough is a joy.  She sings perfect pop songs that are clever, fun, interesting.  She's got an amazing back catalogue - if you don't believe me, put on her Ultimate Kylie album and just listen to it all the way through.  Count how many songs you know, enjoy, tap your feet to, despite yourself.

I put on Aphrodite, her latest album: not my favourite (that's probably X, controversially) but one whose newness meant I was less familiar with it.  Soon I had the elegant All The Lovers in my ears, and things didn't seem so dark.  The rain stopped.  Moments of brightness shone through the clouds.  By the time the third track, Put Your Hands Up (If You Feel Love), came on, my arse was shaking, my fists were bouncing, and I was singing along.  Thank God Llanbedr is in such an isolated spot.    

Does all that make me a big old gaylord?  Yup.  I don't care.

The train arrived with the last song, the first moment of good timing that day, and soon I was crossing the bridge over the river Artro and disembarking at Pensarn station.  On my journeys in Wales last year I'd visited Abergele and Pensarn station; coming here felt like a strange link to the last journey, a passing of the torch almost.  While that station had overlooked clean clear sand, this one was close to tidal flats and grey water.  Its position was less beautiful, but equally inspiring.

I crossed the railway line and passed through the boatyard of the Christian Mountain Centre.  This was a new one for me.  I didn't realise that outdoor pursuits were an activity that required religious guidance.  I suppose dangling off a rope thousands of feet above the ground is when you would want God to be on your side.

I was now following the Welsh Coastal Path, which follows the edge of the whole principality, and which took me across the sheepfields round the coast.  The ground was soggy and wet, releasing my boot only after a struggle.  I tried to stick to the path, but sometimes I was forced to dance around in the grass just to stay upright.

Sheep watched me approach with intensity.  They ran it through in their head - friend or foe?  Fight or flight?  Every time, I thought I might have a challenger, but then they'd suddenly turn and leg it, moving to a safe distance, their lambs following behind.  It was hard not to be insulted.

After a couple of stiles, the soil firmed up, and the grass became more trim and managed.  I saw a woman standing in the middle of the path, perfectly still; at first I thought she was just taking in the majesty of the scenery, then I saw the backside of a mongrel in the grass up ahead of her.  She wasn't the last dog walker in this particular field, and I was back to dancing around, this time to avoid the little heaps of mess left behind.

The chapel at Llandanwg has become famous as the "church of the dunes".  Built in the 13th century, it's proved to be rather less mobile than the sands around it.  What was once an inspiring spot on the coast has become a sand-bound hillock, and the church was soon finding itself buried.  Regular worshipping had to be stopped as it became impossible to get the grains out of your cassock.

It was a lovely idea - this old building succumbing to the forces of nature.  Unfortunately, man had intervened again, in this case in the form of the Prince of Wales.  As usually happens when HRH intervenes on matters of architecture, he'd made it much more boring than it could have been.  His organisation had paid for the church to be rescued, the dunes shored up, fencing put in place and a path laid around it.

It revealed that the Parish Church of Saint Tanwg was, at heart, just another church.  Take away the mounds of sand and it was revealed to be no different to churches all across Wales.

I did a circuit, but the building was locked up, so I couldn't even go in and look round.  I peered through the barred windows and saw little hints of religious miscellany, but it was too dark to see anything.  The only fascination was the high walls of sand above my head.  I reflected that these protective efforts wouldn't be enough to hold them back; in the end, this church was doomed to be reclaimed, and it was just a question of when.

The plus side of Charles' intervention, and that of the National Trust, is that the church is now being promoted as more of a tourist attraction.  It's also lead to the opening of a small cafe, the Maes, by the car park.  Thank goodness it was there, because as I left the churchyard, the cloud above me collapsed, hurling water down over the bay in a violent storm.

I ducked inside and ordered a tea from the Brummie woman behind the counter.  She'd obviously retired here with her husband, a Frank Butcher-alike who was hiding in the shed outside, and she had the smily, optimistic look of someone who can't quite believe her luck in getting to live in such a wondrous place.  Or perhaps she was just glad to get out of the West Midlands.

The tables and chairs were still new, spotlessly clean and comfortable, if a little bland.  A tiny underfed  girl came in while her boyfriend held the dog under the awning outside.  She ordered an orange juice - fifty pence - and then befuddled the lady behind the counter by asking for a receipt.  After three attempts, she managed to wrestle the till into issuing one, leaving me to wonder who wants a 50p receipt.  I pictured her at the end of the month, totting up every purchase against her bank statement.  Her boyfriend then came in, a giant Welsh rugby bear, to get himself a hot chocolate.

Outside, his mobile rang, and he effortlessly switched into speaking Welsh.  It was the first time I'd heard anyone speaking it since I'd arrived, and I enjoyed the sudden alien-ness of it.  It made this rather ordinary cafe seem exotic and foreign.

Warmed by the tea, and with the rain subsiding to a mere drizzle, I headed up the hill to Llandanwg station.  It's another dinky platform, the length of a single carriage, with a wooden shelter and a plant pot with some insipid Bizzy Lizzies in it.  I installed myself in the shelter, took out my now shattered schedule, and tried to use the timetable on the wall to plan the alternatives.

Something was wrong.  Something didn't add up.  My route was based on a pattern of station-train-station-walk-station, and it should have fitted the remaining trains perfectly.  I always ended up with one left over though, an odd, rogue station that shouldn't have been there.  I couldn't work it out.  I ran my finger down the timetable, getting frustrated that the lateness at Llanbedr had thrown me out so completely.

Then it hit me.  Porthmadog was missing.

I checked again and, yes, there was no Porthmadog on the timetable.  My first thought was that it was closed for some reason - engineering works, or refurbishment, or something.  I finally spotted a sticker, artlessly added at the bottom: Train times from Porthmadog.

Yup, Arriva Trains Wales had managed to print and issue all the timetables, and no-one noticed an entire station was missing.  If I were a passenger at Porthmadog I'd be feeling pretty aggrieved.  Clearly they're not high on the train company's priorities.

I figured that it was more hassle than it was worth trying to make this broken timetable work, so I took out a book from my bag and read that until the train arrived.  I'd have put on some more Kylie, but I didn't want to violate the by-laws:

I'd left a space on my schedule to explore Harlech.  It does, after all, have a castle, plus a famous song named after it.  And when I got off at the station, there was an impressive riot of colour and facilities - even a footbridge.  The northbound platform's shelter had been illustrated with colourful imagery from Wales, a pleasing splash of brightness.

The southbound platform was - how can I put this - shit.  It had been decorated with a mural, and a sign boasted that it was "painted by the ladies of the Harlech WI".  I suppose I should admire their honesty in confessing to their crime.

It apparently tells the story of "Taliesin: How the legend of the chief of Celtic bards was born".  It was a mish-mash of New Age, semi-mystical, wibbly-wobbly Earth mother nonsense - all fire giving birth to animals and flying stars.  Of course, because it tells a story, we're meant to overlook the dreadful representations.  It looked like it had been drawn by schoolkids, though at least you'd forgive them for their naive artistic style.  It was just horrible.

Worse, there were far better things the ladies of the WI should have been devoting their time to.  A plaque on the wall said they'd adopted the station in June 2010, but they'd devoted all their efforts to the awful mural and a rowing boat full of flowers.  The station building stood on the platform, boarded up, abandoned, ignored.  I'm not suggesting that they should set up a full ticket office, manned by women in sensible hats and serving cream teas, but they could have spent some of their paint budget on giving it the odd lick.  Perhaps cover up the graffiti, or deal with some of the flaking parts, or knock down the burnt out wooden porch.  Not major structural work, just a bit of a touch up.  As it was, I got the impression that they did their mural then buggered off.

Station adoption is admirable, and I have to give props to Harlech WI for even bothering.  I just think they should have concentrated on the quick fixes first.

The way from the station to the town is via an impossibly steep, pavement less road that curves and twists up the hill.  Staggering, wheezing, realising that I still need to lose a whole load more weight, I dragged myself upwards, jumping into people's driveways to avoid the cars coming the opposite way.  At the top I was presented with the castle.

I was surprised by how small it was.  It's impressive to look at, but it's not the giant fortress of, say, Conwy.  This is your starter castle, for your first time dominator.  I walked around it, but it was 4:30 and so I wasn't going to pay to go in and get half an hour of wandering before I was turfed out.  Besides, a castle is always most impressive and fearsome when you're on the outside.

I turned instead to the town, and walked the main street.  Everything was closing or closed.  Not much of a loss, if I'm honest.

There are some places that lazily recline on their history.  They almost challenge the visitor with their past: "We've got an eight hundred year old castle.  What have you got?"  Chester does it, pointing at its walls and daring you to say it's not worth visiting.  Harlech did the same trick.  It had got its castle and then stopped bothering with anything else of interest.  The high street was banks and newsagents and chip shops and a few tacky "antique" shops flagging up Portmeirion china.  The houses were ordinary working class stock, scattered across the hillside like dropped Monopoly pieces; nothing to be ashamed of, but nothing special either.  The town didn't work for my attention, and I didn't grant it.

I reached the other end of town, where an alien spacecraft had landed and been pressed into service as the theatre, and passed one of the most horrible buildings I have ever seen.  It was quite easily the worst building I have seen in Wales (and remember, I've been to Rhyl) - a slab of beige concrete towering over the coast.  I turned back, shielding my face from its hideousness, in case I got concrete cancer from looking at it for too long.

Twenty minutes, and I'd seen everything I wanted to see.  I went back on myself and found a pub, the Lion Hotel.  It was warm and had wi-fi.  I bought a pint of bitter and hid in a corner, beside a stack of board games that had obviously been pressed into service in the pub once the kids grew out of them.  There were four men at the bar, rough, gnarled, talking about shagging and drinking and saying "fucking" with every other sentence.  One man held forth about his experiences in the Navy - getting locked up in the brig for desertion, getting his wife pregnant before starting another tour - before asking for another glass of "medicine - and not in a warm glass, neither".

Across from me were two Goths, pierced and blackened, sipping Cokes.  They murmured in Welsh, unlike the men at the bar, and sipped their drinks thoughtfully.  I wondered what was the Welsh for cthulhu.

And behind the bar - be still, my beating heart - was an astonishingly beautiful barman.  Through the chat I worked out he's the landlord's son, a student, and he's so attractive I had problems ordering my drinks from him.  He had enormous blue eyes and a shy smile, and I was struck dumb.  He wandered around the bar, bored by the old men's complaining ("America's awful.  Especially Disneyland - what a fucking dump."), and threw a few darts into the board with a languorous swing of his arm.  I reminded myself that I was a married man.  And that it was rude to stare.

Two pints later and I was heading back down the hill towards the station.  I wondered if I'd just misjudged Harlech.  If it wasn't lazy, but instead, overawed.  It was perhaps just a normal Welsh town that happened to have an enormous piece of Medieval masonry plonked in the middle.  I thought it would be like Caernarfon; I'd had expectations that hadn't been fulfilled.  Or perhaps the barman had just given me an urge to revisit the town.

There was a boy walking up the hill towards me, singing to himself.  He was about eleven, old enough to still sing without embarrassment, a rucksack over his shoulder.  He was also, quite clearly, lost in a world of his own.  He saw me approaching and did something unexpected.  Instead of shying away, blushing at being caught, he smiled at me and said, "hello!".  Cheery and polite.  I was taken aback, but mumbled a hello back as he passed me, still singing.

I realised I was grinning.  He'd charmed me.  The town wasn't up to much, but the people obviously were.  I mentally upgraded Harlech and headed home.

Escape from Shell Island

Unlike most of the other stations on the Cambrian Coast Line, Barmouth is a significant presence in the town.  Like most of them, however, very little of it is actually used for railway purposes.  The 19th century building on the southbound platform has been lovingly restored, but it's now used for a tourist information office.

The opposite platform - because this is another rare spot where there are two tracks - has a fairly recent redevelopment on it, "Cambrian Court" - an L-shaped building with shops and cafes and a public toilet.  (The food place next to the loos was called the WC Cafe; unsurprisingly it seemed to have gone bust).  Again though, there's nowhere you could, I don't know, buy a ticket, or ask about services elsewhere in the country, or anything else you might want to do in a railway station.  Sigh.

The station has been prettily enhanced by photographs of the town, supplied by a regeneration company, along with potted histories of important places.  It gives you something to read while you wait for your train, which I always appreciate.

It was half seven in the morning, and I thought that my train would be unoccupied; most holidaymakers stay in bed until gone nine, after all, and this isn't exactly prime commuter land.  I hadn't realised that the 07:51 service was a school train.  Slowly the platform filled up with hyper teenagers, bouncing around with far too much energy for that time of the morning, getting it out of their system before they reached school.  It was fascinating watching the hierarchy of the station, the way the smaller, younger boys moved to the far end, while the sixth formers noisily occupied the centre.  I imagined the excitement every September when you moved up a spot.

It seemed that I had unknowingly occupied the territory of some 14 year old girls by sitting on a bench. They strode in confidently then did a double take at me, their faces assuming that look of disgust that only teenage girls can adequately convey.  They were forced to stand a couple of feet away from me, throwing me evil glances now and then, teetering on vertiginous heels they hadn't really planned on standing on.

The train arrived and the schoolkids swarm all over it, annexing the table seats and throwing down bags of Haribo for the journey.  I was inwardly tutting at their consumption of sweets at this time of the morning (child obesity crisis!)  until I remembered that I used to do the same thing myself.  I went through crazes - there was a time when it was all Trebor Softmints, then there was the XXX Extra Strong Mint phase (sadly not named after Major Amasova), and there was a whole term of watermelon Nerds.  I don't approve of Haribo though, largely because they have the worst commercials ever made.

The guard suddenly appeared, the nice jolly one who'd been on a few of my trips the day before, but who was in gruppenfuhrer mode.  "I don't want a mess like yesterday," she scolded.  "There are bins in this carriage - use them.  I won't open the doors at Harlech until you tidy up."

Fortunately I was only in this mobile Grange Hill for a short while, as I was getting off at the next station.  Llanaber felt like a world away from the relative buzz of Barmouth; a small platform set into a hillside, built on top of the sea wall.  The salt water spray was turning the metal shelter brown with rust.  I got off and a solitary schoolgirl got on; I felt sorry for her, waiting alone on this platform every morning.  It must be awful in winter, when it's still dark and the wind whips across the Irish Sea.

My plan had been to walk to the next station, Talybont, along the shore.  There was a slight problem with that.

The tide was in, meaning that the only way I could walk along the shore was if I had a scuba tank tucked in my back pack.  I did not.

I returned to the platform to get the station sign and to reconsider my options.  My OS map didn't seem to have much in the way of paths to Talybont, unless I was willing to go out of my way into the hills above the village.  I was afraid that would mean I'd end up missing my connection at the next station, so with a sigh, I realised it was time for another bus.  The Traveline Cymru app I'd downloaded said there was a bus from the stop outside the station, so I pushed up the rough track to the main road.

After an hour of sitting on a wall, the bus arrived.  The driver was mad, of course, silently resentful that I'd interrupted his slalom around the mountain roads by becoming his first passenger of the day.  I took a place on the empty bus so I could experience life as it is lived by a pair of underpants in the rinse cycle of a washing machine.  I was hurled left and right, almost toppling out of my seat, until I was able to get out at Talybont and experience the pleasure of stillness again.

The village was pleasing and well-kept, with a post office, hairdresser and a little village green with a public toilet tucked behind the bus shelter.  It was all very ordinary, with only an Italian restaurant called "Tony's" hinting that there might be more to it that just another farming community.

This is prime caravan park territory.  I shouldn't sneer, because my parent's first home after they married was a mobile home, and so the first eleven months of my life were spent in one (yep, I really am trailer trash).  I just don't get them.  I don't get why people drive a couple of hundred miles to spend their weekends in a tin box listening to next door's stereo.

They talk about getting away from it all, enjoying the peace and quiet, but these parks are just housing estates.  Your neighbours are always going to be the same, the staff are always the same, your caravan's in the same place.  It's just like that semi you left behind, except here you have to empty a chemical toilet every other week.  Caravans are such an odd halfway house.  You're not getting back to nature, as you can in a tent, because you've got a roof and a telly; but at the same time, it's still cold in winter and hot in summer, and you have to shower in a block along with everyone else on site.

I pictured an evening at the Sands Leisure Complex, sitting in the corner of the bar where the same faces are singing the same songs on the karaoke while you tuck into your burger and chips.  It'd be the same on the fiftieth visit as it was on the first, only without the element of novelty.  Perhaps some people like that.  Perhaps some people like the reassurance, the saminess, the idea that you know exactly what you're getting.  No surprises.

I walked past a field of lambs; the charming pastoral scene was slightly ruined by the smashed bottles of  blue WKD and Carlsberg in the grass.  The station's tucked under a bridge at the head of the parks, and had just recently had a new coat of paint, ready for the summer season.  They hadn't bothered wiping the bird shit off the perspex roof of the shelter, but nice effort anyway.

The bus trip meant I had a while to wait for my train.  I leaned back on the seat and let myself relax, as best as you can relax in a turquoise box with metal seats.  Some of the stations didn't even have a seat, just a metal bar, which is only any good if you want to do a particularly low rent production of Sweet Charity.

Suddenly the payphone started ringing.  I never know what to do in these circumstances; it's not going to be for me, is it, so what's the point in answering?  It seemed particularly insistent though, so I finally picked it up and said "Hello..?"

It carried on ringing.  I was stood with the receiver in my hand but the phone was still clanging away.  Memories of Acorn Antiques came rushing back; I felt like I should be wearing a jersey two piece.  Before I could ask them if they had Leonardo da Lisa's Mona Vinci at a very reasonable price, the phone stopped.  Whoever it was, they didn't call back.

Two of us got off the train at Dyffryn Ardudwy; me and a young pretty girl.  While I stopped on the platform to take a picture of the old station building (now a house of course), she crossed the tracks to hug a girl who looked exactly the same.  Either they were sisters or there's a sinister cloning facility hidden inside one of those mountains.  Frankly either explanation could be valid.

The station's on a very minor road in the middle of fields and dunes; it probably would have closed years ago if it weren't for the presence of another holiday park down the road.  It was one of those days where the clouds would dearly love to rain, but can't quite manage the effort; instead the grey skies just sat there, casting a pall over me.  It certainly wasn't a day for the beach, but that was where I was headed.

I had to actually walk through the holiday park, past what I suppose would be called "chalets" in the brochure, but just looked like double glazed sheds to me.  It was deserted, unsurprisingly, with just a tractor slowly tugging a new caravan into place providing any excitement.  There was a minor pleasure in a K8 phone box, the none-more-sixties updating of the classic red booth.  It's a very rare sight these days, and I was pleased to see it still in service - though it also had the effect of underlining just how dated the holiday park felt.  I wouldn't have been surprised if the manager was Peter Butterworth.

Out the other side, and soon I was clambering over the high dunes of the Morfa Dyffryn Nature Reserve.  The dunes here are shaped entirely by the wind, and are constantly shifting; signs warned you to stick to the paths, as there were fences buried beneath the sands.

The expanse of sand seemed hopelessly huge; a flat plain of yellow, rubbing up against the clear blue Cardigan Bay.  I was completely alone in every direction.  There weren't even birds, just me and the empty shore.  It felt exhilarating and, at the same time, humbling; I was a tiny pin prick in the mass of nature.

Morfa Dyffryn is famous for something else beside its stunning natural beauty; gratuitous nudity.  A stretch of the sands form Wales's only naturist beach.  They're very keen to "warn" you that, yes, there may be naked bodies in view.  Personally, I think the signs are too polite; they should just have "Look out!  Minge!" in big neon letters.  Do people have to be warned about nudity, anyway?  I've been to parks in Berlin where there are testicles everywhere you look, and it didn't cause me lifelong psychological damage.  Not even the man just wearing a pair of chaps.

Apparently wardens have to regularly drive men out of the dune area; there's a proportion of gentlemen who stand up there and, ahem, "enjoy" the view a bit too much.

Being entirely alone, you'd think it was ideal for me to drop my pants, but it's actually more intimidating to take your clothes off when there's no-one else around.  A group of naked people makes a naturist beach; one naked man on his own is just a pervert.  Did I take all my clothes off?  No.  I left my boots on.

Not the first dose of crabs to be on that beach, etc.

The wind whipped across the sand with increasing ferocity as I rounded the headland; I was getting a facial scrub I really didn't want.  Thankfully my glasses protected me from the worst of it, but it still started getting distinctly boring.  I turned inland, back into the dunes, and walked towards my next station, Llanbedr.

The dunes seemed to go on forever, one difficult to climb hill after another.  I thought I must have reached the end, only to crest a mound and find a view of more sand ahead of me.  Finally I scrambled down to a well-made road, and I realised I was on Shell Island.

This is one of the largest camp sites in Europe, though it's rather more back to basics than you might expect.  Shell Island is laid out in such a way that it discourages tents from being too close to one another, and has few facilities.  This is a place for wild camping, a chance to experience a more rough and untempered world of canvas.

I was surprised to find there were actually people there, bravely pitching up in the little copses, the flaps whistling in the strong winds.  It can be hard on you here - I passed a giant wheely bin with a torn tent poking out the top.  I imagined an Oxo dad shoving it in exasperatedly with a "sod it - we're going to Majorca next year."

There's an old air force base at the island's eastern perimeter, which restricts your access, but I'd seen a pathway that circled it and would get me to the station in plenty of time.  Except... it was closed.  The council had blocked it off for refurbishment works.  It meant I had to double back, through the way I came, and onto the campsite's established roads.

I was frustrated and angry.  The double back meant I had wasted a massive amount of time, and now it looked like I was going to be late.  I walked over hills and through fields, passing through what seemed like dozens of empty camping sites, just trying to find a way out.  Then, in the distance, I heard the parp of my train passing.  I had missed it.  That meant the end of my carefully planned schedule for the day.

Seething at Gwynedd Council, Shell Island, campers and humanity in general, I located the way out, through the facilities complex.  Perhaps it was just my negative mood, but it all seemed a bit too wholesome to me; the sort of place that cults set up for special weekends of worship, and which are then blown up by the FBI because it turned out they were stockpiling AK-47s in preparation for the end of days.  Put it this way: I bet they sold Kool-Aid in the supermarket.

The site is accessed via a causeway, which floods at high tide; it means the landscape is flat and brown and dull.  The sea waters trickles through channels.  I must have looked a pathetic sight, my jeans still covered in sand around the bottom, my backpack dangling off one shoulder, the only vertical in a horizontal landscape.  The causeway just added to the end of the world feel.  You weren't just camping here - you were ready for the apocalypse.

I passed round the other side of the RAF base, dark and empty, with signs saying "warning: unstable roof" on the asbestos huts.  The only sign of life was an air cadet centre; I wondered where on earth all the cadets came from, because the area seemed completely unpopulated.  Maybe they helicoptered in.

Then, blessed be, there was Llanbedr station, a little blue speck in the distance that got bigger and bigger.  It wasn't much to write home about, but it didn't matter by then.  It was a place where I could have a nice sit down and a drink.  That'd do.